On beyond books

It's easy to beat up on PowerPoint. We've all sat through more than our fair share of presentations featuring that ubiquitous Microsoft application, bullet after bullet, screen after screen. The New York Times even recently had an article about how PowerPoint has become an obessive time-devourer within the U.S. Army.

But one of the reasons PowerPoint is so universal is because sometimes it really does the trick. That was the case in a Maryland district that wanted to use a PowerPoint presentation to supplement their regular Algebra program. Working with the district, we developed 100 Lesson Starters for Algebra I, and it's now available in both a Maryland and a national version.

The "book" is a 100-slide PowerPoint program (it comes on a disc, easy to install, just insert it into a computer). Each slide has an image showing something students can identify with: a mall, a concert, a swim meet. And below each image is a basic Algebra problem that relates to that place or event. Teachers can use one or more of these screens every day to introduce Algebra in a more friendly format for students. [The speaker notes for each slide give suggestions for how to use the material, what student responses might be, and more.] Most students are familiar with PowerPoint -- they often use it themselves in class presentations. Makes sense to employ the same format to teach. We're not suggesting that PowerPoint can (or will) replace books or other educational media. But here's a case where it works well as a supplementary aid in the teacher's toolkit.